Drizzle, LEGO and Star Wars.

It’s a rainy day here in SoCal. Which means that it isn’t actually raining. It’s been drizzling most of the day, heavily enough to ensure that the roads (and my windshield) stay wet, but not enough that you need an umbrella.

Which is why I was surprised when on the way home I saw a river running on the side of the road. But when I noticed traffic come to a stop up ahead, I realized that either a water main had burst, or someone had hit a hydrant. I apologize that the picture wasn’t better, but there were Highway Patrol blocking off the area of the accident and I didn’t want to get in trouble for using my phone while driving. (Both pictures were snapped while my car was stopped)

Yesterday was the Oldest Kidlet’s 7th birthday. Since we’d already had his birthday party, but hadn’t given him his present yet (I would have given LK his present on his birthday, but I sort of had a feeling his classmates show up at their joint birthday party and I wanted him to get some presents, so I held off on his). It was… a LEGO Star Wars set!

The kidlets have been getting into LEGO, and only recently discovered the joy that is their Star Wars line. LittleGeekGirl and her brother gave OK a V-Wing set, and it gets a regular amount of playtime. My mom bought OK a set with Savage Opress AND Asajj Ventriss (She gets bonus points for buying stuff with female SW characters)! Oh, and Anakin Skywalker. And two little models of an X-wing and Naboo Starfighter. The set that we bought him was from A New Hope – with the escape pod, two Stormtroopers and Artoo and Threepio. They even had a shiny LEGO chip included so that your Stormtrooper can re-enact that infamous line, “Look Sir, droids!” (The youngest Brother-in-law watched me putting them together and wondered if the sets were more for me than them. Considering I lectured my boys for ten minutes on what an escape pod is and what it isn’t… he might be onto something.)

Of course, they play with these enough that I also have to keep reassembling bits and pieces of them. So much that this morning the Oldest Kidlet asked if I could glue these sets together, since these are the LEGOs that you play with, not use to build other things.

While I’m on the subject of LEGO Star Wars, if you’re a fan, I recommend checking out the LEGO Star Wars specials. I still haven’t seen the first one, but they showed The Empire Strikes Out last week on Cartoon Network and we recorded it. So I’ve seen it at least a dozen times now.

They’re excessively silly. Which is sort of the way I like things. Also, Darth Maul’s in it (voiced by Sam Witwer, just like in Clone Wars). And of course, Anthony Daniels voices Threepio.

If you need one reason, there’s this: Han shoots first. And when asked about it says, “Why wouldn’t I?”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish reading up on how to immortalize my LEGO sets.

(PS- If you’re a fan of Jedi Lore, even if you aren’t a fan of The Clone Wars, I recommend checking out this story arch: “The Gathering” – “A Test of Strength” – “Bound for Rescue” – “A Necessary Bond” It follows a group of younglings on their quest to build lightsabers, and more or less is a standalone arch. And if you need more reason to check it out, David Tennant voices a character in it.)

A thirty something year old writer, artist, mother, and geek, Whitney writes about what catches her attention- whether it's kids, fandom, politics, life as a Hispanic woman, or life with Crohn's disease.